


Raising Werewolves

by Cat_K



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Cerberuses, Discrimination, Erumpents, Forest of Dean, Gen, Giants, Gloucestershire, Griffins, Hagrid Family, Hogwarts Letter, Lydford-on-the-Lam, Magical Animals, Pre-Marauders Era, Riddle at Hogwarts Era, The Forbidden Forest, The Magical Menagerie, The Marvellous Magical Menagerie, There will be werewolves eventually, Winged Horses, ashwinders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25687234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_K/pseuds/Cat_K
Summary: The Childhood of Rubeus Hagrid: Mr & Mrs Hagrid, the Forest of Dean, Lydford-on-the-Lam, a travelling zoo, prejudice and bigotry, and a Hogwarts letter.Dedicated to Fridwulfa, and to all people everywhere who have suffered from unthinking stereotyping and from outright prejudices & bigotry.
Relationships: & Grandmother Hagrid, Fridwulfa/Hagrid Sr, Rubeus Hagrid & Fridwulfa Hagrid, Rubeus Hagrid & Fridwulfa Hagrid & Hagrid Sr, Rubeus Hagrid & Hagrid Sr
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Raising Werewolves

**Author's Note:**

> On hiatus for now, but can be read as a stand-alone piece as it is. See end notes for more.
> 
> Regarding the title: This story as it will one day become (hopefully) was inspired by [_Raising Werewolf Cubs Under His Bed_](/works/23884084) by [piesandfalcs](/users/piesandfalcs/pseuds/piesandfalcs). It will be officially linked once I actually reach the part outlined by piesandfalcs.

Mr and Mrs Hagrid, of Lydford-on-the-Lam, Gloucestershire, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Well, admittedly they were rather smaller than average, for Mr Hagrid, who was a human, was five foot two and Mrs Hagrid, who was a giantess, was sixteen foot eight. But as she liked to say, they might be small, but not so small as not to still be perfectly normal, and he liked to say that their hearts were rather larger than average (for a human and a giantess respectively, that is), so that evened out.

Mrs Hagrid (whose first name was Fridwulfa, but Mr Hagrid called her Fridabelle) and Mr Hagrid (and his first name was Holiburn, but she called him Holbi) were the owners of a travelling zoo known as the Marvellous Magical Menagerie. And marvellous it was indeed. It had lots of wooden caravans. In some the Hagrids lived when travelling, another was an admission booth complete with a built-in floo fireplace, one was a small café which served anything you asked for – refreshments, breakfast, lunch, or even multi-course dinners –, one caravan served as a pet shop, but most of course housed the magical animals in all their glorious variety. When the Menagerie was under way, the animals were shut up in their caravans, but at all stops large magical enclosures were expanded, wondrously crafted to display the animals’ natural habitats, so large that no animal need feel confined, but at the same time keeping all animals within perfect viewing distance. When travelling, the caravans where pulled by large winged horses. Except for Mrs Hagrid’s caravan. She said that if she were meant to fly, she would have been born with wings, and that as she did not have wings, she preferred to stay on the ground. Her caravan was always hooked up to a rented out Hogwarts Express locomotive, one of the older, smaller ones, and she travelled by rail.

Mr Hagrid was a small wisp of a man, with a long neck and an even longer moustache. Mrs Hagrid, when measured, was three and a quarter times as tall Mr Hagrid and seven times as wide, though her presence was much larger (giants are like that), but both her neck and her moustache were much shorter than Mr Hagrid’s. The Hagrids had a small son called Rubeus (a _very_ small son, according to Mrs Hagrid) and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere (size isn’t _everything_ , as Mrs Hagrid was wont to say).

Rubeus (or, as his parents called him, Ruby) was a sunny child, who loved the animals almost as much as his family (maybe more, his father joked – his mother just smiled). As a baby, he went along on all the road trips, but once he was weaned, he sometimes stayed home in Lydford-on-the-Lam with his grandmother, his father’s mother, who was even smaller than her son. But wherever he was, he never was bored. As soon as he was able to toddle, he went straight for the animals whenever his parents put him down, and had mock-tussles with the Griffin cubs or howling contests with the Cerberuses or tried his hand at charming the Ashwinders. And when home alone, as often as not he toddled off straight into the Forest of Dean, either into the Muggle parts (Muggle watching was fun, and there were their dogs to befriend) or into the strictly forbidden hidden magical parts (should he be doing this, his father worried – his mother just smiled). As he got older his forays got longer, and he spent whole days exploring hidden hollows or befriending the forest’s centaur herd or punting the Lam on his scratch-built raft.

But not all of his life was sunshine, daisies, butter mellow.

When he was just three, his mother left. She loved her husband and child, and they loved her, but society at large had different views. About giants in general and about human-giant liaisons in particular. At some point Mrs Hagrid couldn’t take the prejudice, the condescension and the remarks anymore, and she left in search of other giants, where she would fit in. Little Rubeus was heartbroken. And his cuddly Erumpent (his mother had sewn it herself, and his father had bewitched its horn to explode most satisfactorily) was heartbroken with him.

At age three, Rubeus could not understand why his mother had left. But as he grew older he learnt the hard way. His father had told him to never let on that he was half a giant, but Rubeus was not made for keeping secrets and telling lies and evasions. He had no close friends at home in Lydford-on-the-Lam, and he was always very happy to meet the children who visited the Marvellous Magical Menagerie with their parents. And they were excited and impressed to meet a boy who lived with the animals and who could get into the enclosures whenever he wanted to (though sadly he wasn’t allowed to take along any visitors). But sooner or later his size would come up. Or his missing mother. Or whatever. And Rubeus would unthinkingly and honestly tell the truth. A few didn’t bat an eye. Most were shocked and either pitied him or grew wary or even frightened. And a lot were outright repulsed. And Rubeus would draw into himself, and for days or even weeks avoid all visitors. So he slowly learnt to evade the subject, but it was hard on him.

When Rubeus was ten, his beloved grandmother died. And Rubeus once again was heartbroken. Together with his dad, she had raised him, and she had cared for him and read books to him and taught him his reading and writing and arithmetic, and when other children told him that he should be exhibited in the Magical Menagerie right alongside the other beasts, then she’d hold him, tiny as she was, and tell him, “It’s them, not yersel’, Rubeus, tha’ yeh shou’ feel sorry fer. People are alrigh’, fer the mos’, but when it comes ter acceptin’ other people tha’ are not quite like them, lots o’ people can be downrigh’ duffers. Not yeh, Rubeus, yeh’ve got a heart tha’s bigger even than yer mum’s or da’s, and yer not scared by much. But other people, they see with their scarediness an’ not with their hearts, an’ at that, yer better then them.” And then it would hurt a little bit less. But then one day he and his dad sat next to her bed and held her hands, and she told them, “Don’ cry ter much now, yeh two, yeh still’ve got each other, an’ it’s the way o’ the worl’ tha’ everybody must leave at some point. It’s allrigh’.” And then she was gone, never to return. And despite her words, he was devastated, and it took him a long time to regain his cheerfulness.

But then, much later, when he was eleven and on the road with his dad and the Magical Menagerie again, an owl delivered a cream-coloured letter with a purple seal addressed to _Rubeus Hagrid, The leaf-green caravan with the red bunting, The Marvellous Magical Menagerie, Somewhere on the road_. And his father smiled broadly and said, “Well, how abou’ tha’, I wasn’ sure ... wasn’ sure at all whether it’d be allowed ... well, Ruby, tonight we’ll celebrate!” And Rubeus said, “Da’, they’ve got a fores’ there tha’s jus’ _chock fu’_ o’ the mos’ wonderfu’ animals. More kinds than the Menagerie has, an’ much, much more than the Fores’ o’ Dean has. Da’, it’s goin’ ter be a _brilliant_ adventure!”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. For now, this story is on hiatus. The reason is that I am actually in the process of writing (very, very slowly) another story, a second instalment for [_Hermione’s Homework_](/works/16530218) (as I should then rename that piece), this one dealing with the history of the Hogwarts Express. (That’s how that reference to “one of the older, smaller Hogwarts Express locomotives” found its way into this story.) Once that story is finished, I plan to come back to _Raising Werewolves_.
> 
> The prologue as it is can be read as a stand-alone piece. The main part will be very different in style (when and if written), and, once written, it could be read as a stand-alone story itself. So if and when you return, you could read the main part without bothering to read the prologue again. I know that that means that from the point of view of _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Write a Good Story_ I might have left off the prologue entirely, but the prologue had different ideas. It wanted to be written, and I happily went along.
> 
> 2\. The name _Marvellous Magical Menagerie_ was taken from [_Strangers at Drakeshaugh_](/works/1623053) by  
> [Northumbrian](/users/Northumbrian/pseuds/Northumbrian). There, though, it is not a travelling zoo, but rather a museum with mounted exhibits.  
> In Harry’s day (i.e. in the 1990s), _Magical Menagerie_ (without the _Marvellous_ ) is of course the name of a pet shop on Diagon Alley.
> 
> 3\. I am not in the slightest knowledgably about the West Country dialect as spoken in the Chepstow/Forest of Dean area in general and by canon Hagrid in particular. I just took Hagrid’s manner of speaking and broadened and deepened it a bit. I hope I’m not too far off.
> 
> 4\. Maybe you wonder why the Marvellous Magical Menagerie needs to travel when it’s got a fully functional floo-fireplace. If you asked around:  
> • First-year-Hermione would point out that as regards the witching world and logic, the twain will never meet.  
> • Sixth-year-Hermione and all great magical theoreticians would explain that a muggle tiger may be the same in Edinburgh or Devon, but that the magical world is convoluted and does not subscribe to straight-forward muggle logic and that magic depends on locality and thus magical animals will noticeably differ _and_ be experienced noticeably differently in different surroundings: a zoo experience in Edinburgh and a zoo experience in Devon have _nothing_ in common.  
> • And Mr Hagrid’s eyes would grow big and he would simply ask in return, regarding not travelling, “An’ where’s the fun in tha’?” while Mrs Hagrid would gently smile (gently for a giantess, that is) and explain, “The world’s ter big a place ter jus’ stay in one tiny part o’ it!”
> 
> 5\. Last not least:  
> [ _ **Fridwulfa’s Decision**_](https://www.deviantart.com/didxsomeonexsayxmad/art/Fridwulfa-s-Decision-603792880) by [DidxSomeonexSayxMad](https://www.deviantart.com/didxsomeonexsayxmad)
> 
> [](https://www.deviantart.com/didxsomeonexsayxmad/art/Fridwulfa-s-Decision-603792880)  
> © [DidxSomeonexSayxMad](https://www.deviantart.com/didxsomeonexsayxmad). Hotlinked here from the original site (with permission): [www.deviantart.com/didxsomeonexsayxmad/art/Fridwulfa-s-Decision-603792880](https://www.deviantart.com/didxsomeonexsayxmad/art/Fridwulfa-s-Decision-603792880), also to be found on the _Harry Potter Lexicon_ : [[1]](https://www.hp-lexicon.org/event/circa-1931-fridwulfa-abandons-hagrid-and-his/), [[2]](https://www.hp-lexicon.org/?attachment_id=24573).
> 
> I have to admit, shamefacedly, that when I began researching for this story, I thought about Hagrid’s parents mostly in stereotypes and categories: “the giantess” and “the man who fell in love with and procreated with a giantess (how weird).” This picture, when I encountered it during research, made me see that Fridwulfa is an individual in her own right, with feelings, and able to incite feelings. That she is someone that Hagrid Sr could fall in love with neither because of nor despite her being a giantess, but just for her own sake. (And of course vice versa, but, another point of embarassment, I thought about Hagrid’s parents purely from a human-oriented baseline, I never thought about them as “a human” and “the giantess who fell in love with and procreated with a human (how weird).”)
> 
> So I’d like to dedicate this story to Fridwulfa, and to all people everywhere who have suffered from unthinking stereotyping & categorising and from outright prejudices & bigotry.


End file.
